With both Ernest’s guidance and Plue’s bugs finding the hideout was easy. Machua didn’t have any complaints about that, the faster the better. But her brother was oddly insistent on checking their surroundings at every step of the way.

  She got the idea of course. What was worse than encountering Dalan was him getting the jump on them. But with Plue’s bugs all spread out, there wasn’t really a way for them not to catch him.

  ‘I guess it’s just one of those things you start doing when you’re an info broker.’

  She couldn’t really mind it but Carmine was going to start assaulting him if they took any longer and she wasn’t really planning on stopping her.

  Machia looked to the skies briefly before turning his gaze to the entrance of the hideout. “We should be okay to head in.”

  “Plu, you’ve already scouted in there right?”

  “Uh-huh. I had my bugs crawl everywhere they could but some places are magically protected so we’ll have to be careful.”

  “Gotcha. Alright, let’s head in.”

  The entrance to the hideout was an unassuming door located in the depths of a ruined apartment building. It was clear that it used to be an underground maintenance and storage room but had now been repurposed for more sinister things.

  The staircase leading down was musty, rusted, and dark. Machua briefly thought back to that disastrous sewer mission. The conditions were similar, but with the whole situation it felt a lot more sinister. There was something to be afraid of now.

  Plue, who was leading the group, disappeared into the darkness, but just as quickly as she went, the entire place was illuminated.

  “The lights still work,” she said.

  Machua took a sigh of relief when Plue reappeared in her vision. So it looked like Dalan wasn’t here after all. If he was, he probably would have charged the group. She looked to the top of the stairs and nodded at Machia, who closed the door leading to them in response. Machua grew a bit antsy with that door being closed but with one of Plue’s bugs watching it, they’d know if Dalan ever opened it.

  ‘For all we know though, the place only has one entrance. If he does appear… it wouldn’t matter.’

  “Okay, let’s do the plan. Spread out and take photos of everything important but don’t touch anything enchanted or protected,” Machua ordered.

  “I’ll lead you to the goods,” Ernest told her. “It has an alarm set up so I dunno if anyone can dismantle it without triggering it.”

  “I can do it,” Machia casually said.

  ‘Of course you can.’

  The trio stuck together while the other half of the squad spread out. The place wasn’t big, roughly a warehouse in size but had a few rooms and corridors that could get a bit confusing. This was evident when they encountered Carmine several times and she had to come up with an excuse for each time. Eventually, Rasa came to pick her up.

  “This room right here,” Ernest pointed.

  Machua didn’t really need the pointer though. It was plain for her to see that the room had an alarm barrier set up. The mana that formed it blended in with the natural mana of the environment, but not perfectly. To her, it was like looking at a replica of a famous piece of art. It looked fine at first glance but upon closer inspection, there were so many irregularities that the whole thing felt wrong.

  Machia gave her a glance before getting to work. Machua stared as his hands weaved the mana into place. His hands moved like they were carrying actual lock-picks and slowly unravelled the protections bit by bit. He slowly poked and prodded around the alarm, shifting to new positions as he did so.

  “It’s easier this way,” Machia answered the question Machua was about to ask.

  “You’ve seen on TV all those times of people dismantling barriers. They always stand there and let their mana do the work without moving a single muscle.”

  “I had a buddy who did that for me before he got killed,” Ernest said. “Sometimes he’d close his eyes so he can focus on controlling his mana.”

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  “It’s the invisible extra ‘muscle’ people have. Moving your body doesn’t help at all other than visualisation. But for us, it’s natural isn’t it?”

  Natural.

  Machi liked using that phrase a lot.

  “Our mana flows to whatever feels the most ‘right.’ The most natural state of things. You act how you believe it should be and your mana will flow as you will it. Martial arts moves, sneaking, lock-picking, all the way to even how we walk. That’s how we cast.”

  Machia paused his ‘lock-picking’ and motioned for her to come over. She knew instantly what he wanted. She gulped then held out her hands and clumsily mimicked his motions.

  “You’ve been looking at Standard spells all your life. They’re not intuitive to you at all, so you have to put in extra work just to try and understand them.”

  Machua focused her eyes on the alarm barrier before her. It was more complicated than the basic ones taught in school, but with it being mostly dismantled already, she could tell there was just one final step before unravelling the whole thing.

  “The only issue is you can’t cast like them, so don’t try it. You have to figure out your own way, but you still understand it just as well as everyone else. Maybe even more.”

  Machua knew from the textbooks, her teacher’s demonstrations and all those videos how barriers worked. She closed her eyes and focused.

  Machua slowly ‘inserted the lock-pick into the lock.’ Her mana flowed and drove itself into the cracks in the alarm barrier.

  Slowly, she turned the lock-pick. One click. Two clicks. Three and four. Just turn and-

  “Done,” Machua murmured as the barrier peacefully broke apart.

  “Right on,” Ernest said as he walked on in.

  ‘That was the easiest barrier unravelling of my life. I mean, most of the work was already done, but it’s a little crazy how the right approach changes everything.’

  Machia went to walk inside, but before he did he gave her a thumbs up. Machua stared at the room for a bit before entering.

  ‘Was everyone casting as intuitively as this?’

  Machua wanted to deeply sigh like Machi always did but stopped herself. They still had a lot of work to do.

  “Oh, Machu, is that the storage room?” Plue alongside Carmine and Rasa walked in on her. “We checked everywhere else already.”

  “Man you’re slow,” Carmine teased as she walked on in.

  Machua rolled her eyes. “There was an alarm barrier here that took a while to unravel.”

  “We didn’t encounter any of those elsewhere so this must be the most important room,” Rasa stated.

  “Good job with the barrier.”

  The squad had all gathered into the room. It seemed to be the main storage room of the whole hideout. There were loads of crates stored away, with Ernest having already opened a few up. In them were the same Devouring Ampoules they found in the warehouse.

  Meanwhile, Machia was at another table looking at a map that was laid down. The map had all kinds of details on it, including where the shipments were being delivered to alongside the locations of other hideouts.

  The group collectively took dozens of photos of the room, but after a reminder from Machia that they didn’t want anyone to be even slightly visible in the photos the group took some time to delete the bad ones. Plue was the best one at this, having taken the most and Carmine took by far the least while also all of them being bad. She took only 2 photos. Plue took over 100 and they were all good.

  “Kay then, let’s roll before anyone walks in on us,” Machua called out as she left.

  Ernest made sure to put the Devouring Ampoule back where he found it, while also closing the crate as best as he could.

  ‘Wait. He’s gonna find out cause we broke the alarm barrier anyway. What am I doing?’

  Ernest shrugged and walked out the room only to find the rest already halfway down the corridor.

  “Come on, Ernest, let’s go!”

  “Comi-“ Ernest stopped halfway through answering.

  His mana twinged. His hair moved slightly more than he expected it to, and his clothes followed suit. It was faint, couldn’t even be called more than a whisper, but it was there.

  ‘…. Was there always a draft here?’

  Suddenly, a nearby wall came crashing down and a huge bull came charging out of it. Ernest just barely managed to dodge out of the way and the noise attracted everyone’s attention. Each one of them turned their head to the bull and drew their weapons.

  ‘It came in through a secret exit!’ Ernest realised.

  “I can take it!” Carmine began to run towards them with her axes.

  “N-no!” Machua yelled. “We better run! We can’t risk it collapsing the place and getting caught up in it! Let’s just go! We can fight it up top if you want!”

  Carmine briefly considered whether to listen to her, but before she could make a decision the bull opened its mouth and a spark of flame flickered in it.

  “Blazing Bull!” Machia called out its name.

  Before the flames could engulf the corridor though, Carmine slashed her wrists and her blood splattered onto the walls. The blood quickly shaped into a wall itself, blocking off the fire.

  “Thanks!”

  “Just hurry the hell up!”

  “I’ll make a slipstream! Follow me!”

  Ernest dashed through the squad with the wind at his back. He trusted them to be at his heel, even without looking back. He could hear the flames engulf the corridor behind him, followed by the breaking of several walls. But he didn’t pay it any mind.

  Ernest almost flew up the stairs in his rush. He quickly unlocked the door and slammed it open. The outside air flowed in and he stepped outside.

  Looking back, he saw the group all making their way up. He heaved a few deep breaths before calling out, “Come on gu-“

  Suddenly, Machia dashed up the staircase at an extreme speed.

  “Ma-?”

  It was then that Ernest noticed that a dagger was pointed directly at his throat. A hand was reaching out from behind him and was about to plunge it in.

  Machia sent out a kick in the exact same direction, right at his neck. Ernest watched as the leg phased through his neck and quickly phased back in right at the space between his neck and the arm. The arm was sent flying.

  Machia quickly shoved Ernest’s head down and shoved both of his legs into the man’s shoulders. The man took the blow head-on and was launched backwards.

  Machia landed in front of Ernest and held a hand out to protect him. Ernest hurriedly turned back and found his deepest fear come true.

  “Man, you got yourself a pretty strong friend over there don’t ya, Ernie?” Dalan laughed a bit.

  Dalan drew his second dagger and began slowly walking to them. On his face was an ugly smirk as if he just couldn’t wait to rip them to shreds.

  “Ernest. Head back down,” Machia told him.

  “What!? We should all be-“ Ernest was cut off.

  “We can’t let both Dalan and the Blazing Bull flank us. Head back down and kill it down there. I’ll stall him.”

  “He’ll kill you! Just because you can deflect him once doesn’t mean you can fight him!”

  “Oh, I can,” Machia’s voice took on a tone that Ernest couldn’t quite recognise. No, it was more of that he didn’t believe it could be the tone he thought it was.

  ‘Is he… eager about this?’

  It couldn’t be. No way. The guy he trusted his life to was eager about fighting Dalan? He trusted his life to someone like this? Was he just as bad as Carmine? But he didn’t have time to ask these questions.

  “Okay,” Ernest nodded and went back down.

  “Aww, going to sacrifice yourself to protect your friends?” Dalan asked with a smirk.

  “Nah, this isn’t a sacrifice play. I just want to test my mettle,” Machia answered with just as much of a smirk on his.

  “I hate ya already. You must be Galas’ yeah? Funny enough he’s the one I hate the least out of Erebus. Either way, I’m going to love tearing ya apart. So, let’s have some fun boy!”

  Dalan dashed to cut him, but Machia’s shoe blocked the blow. The sound of metal clanging onto metal rung constantly.

  ‘We just have to finish before that sound stops!’